


03. Making History

by djchika



Series: In the Waiting [3]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-27
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 15:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djchika/pseuds/djchika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren and Mia had broken up and a year later Chris finds out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	03. Making History

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted January 6, 2013
> 
> Part of My Crisscolfer 100 Ficlet (Drabble) Challenge

He danced around Chris with a practiced ease. It was a necessity that Darren had incorporated into his life. Various dips and turns and waltzes and tiny circling, little steps.

It had been months since he and Mia broke up. Almost a whole year since a seemingly innocent fight had pulsed and caught fire, destroyed all that was left of his first real adult love.

Almost a whole year since he realized he had feelings for Chris.

The first few months were easy. All his energy had been focused on putting himself back together, finding the little pieces he had lost and gluing them back on. Mia had been such a big part of his life for so long that, in a way, Darren had forgotten what it meant to exist without the knowledge that she would always be there.

Because he had loved Mia, could remember a time when life was unimaginable without her, but somewhere, somehow, his feelings had changed. They had evolved into something that wasn’t less, not at all, but different.

Still, it wasn’t enough for them to continue being together. Not enough for him to deny the swell and leap of his heart at the sight of Chris.

It took everything in Darren not to say anything to him. It was different, the knowing. Knowing made his feelings always seem too close to the surface, too raw and too brittle.

The want, want, _want_ in Darren was almost too much, but he stilled himself. Contented himself with the small things. A lingering touch. A look. A hug that probably lasted longer than necessary.

Darren had wondered if his feelings would fade. If time and a self-imposed distance would help. It hadn’t, not one bit. He fell in love over and over again. Mornings and afternoons and evenings. He fell in love during seemingly innocuous moments when Darren would allow himself to watch Chris underneath his lashes. Surreptitious glances that could mean anything, but actually only meant that he was breaking the rules.

It was Chris he thought about late at night when he was in bed, staring at his bedroom ceiling as if the answer to the world’s problems were hidden in the rafters.

He protected his feelings with a wall built on a foundation of friendship and fear because Darren knew that the moment Chris found out, nothing would be the same. It was reckless to hope and the fear that he would lose Chris too was too big.

He should have expected that nothing would stop his treacherous heart from revealing itself.

They were on the way to an event. Him and Chris in one car because of last minute changes to the schedule. Chris was telling a story about Brian and Darren couldn’t help but look over at him. In the safety of the vehicle his eyes took in everything that he loved about Chris, roving over every freckle and dimple and crease of his smile.

There were few moments when the two of them were alone nowadays and Darren relished the opportunity to simply _look_.

“Darren?” Chris asked, suddenly aware that Darren was staring at him and hadn’t heard a word he was saying.

Darren blinked. He didn’t know what was happening at first. He felt a spinning, dizzying rush and the coiled spring in his heart that he had kept tightly wound, snapped in an instant. All of his carefully built walls came tumbling down right before Chris’ eyes and Darren broke, cracked open and vulnerable, no longer able to hide how he felt. Waiting and wanting and honest and oh so in love.

Chris gasped, breath catching in his chest, eyes unable to tear away from Darren’s and just like that Chris _knew_.

Both men sat in stilled silence, afraid to move and break the tenuous grasp they had of a past that was safe and unthreatening. Afraid to move forward into dangerous territory because neither knew what it held.

The car stopped and Darren panicked. He reached over and took Chris’ hand, unwilling to let him leave the car in fear that he had ruined the one thing in his life that was holding him together.

“Wait.” He heard his own voice say, hoarse and unfamiliar.

Darren held his breath as Chris froze and looked at Darren’s hand on his. Time and the beating of his heart stopped, suspended as he waited for Chris.

Chris turned his palm to face Darren’s and wrapped his fingers around his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before letting go and stepping out of the car.

The rush of breath that escaped Darren, didn’t ease the tightness in his chest.

It meant nothing and everything. Not a step forward and not a step back. He took it as all he could.

It was a start.


End file.
